Aston Martin success mixed amongst the carnage of the ADAC GT4 Germanys visit to Austria

Again, it was the four entries from the Doer Team who set the early pace ahead of Saturday’s opening hour long race with the #007 car of Ben Dorr and Romain Leroux claiming a P3 start just ahead of their #95 car of Nico Hantke (with Simon Connor Primm) and the #69 car of Indy Dontjie (with Phil Dorr) in P6 and P7 respectively. The two Prosport Racing cars would again compete in both the Junior and Trophy class with the #24 car of Mike David Ortmann (with Hugo Sasse) starting from P9 after the double podium event from Oschersleben whilst Christopher Rohner and Yevgen Sokolovskiy looked for their firs Trophy Class podium with their #48 car with their P28 starting slot.

Tom Wood and Euan McKay qualified lower down than otherwise expected in P14 for the #6 Racing One crew after they so very nearly won the last race overall, being only pipped to that P1 honour on the very last lap of Oschersleben last time out. Brothers Sandro and Juliano Holzem completed the AMR entry with their #97 Doer Motorsport car that would start P21.

Overnight rain had passed but the track was warm and dry ahead of Saturdays race as the grid thundered towards the tight right hand turn of Turn 1 but contact between many within the pack saw a Mercedes AMG GT4 grind to a halt at the top of the hill with a blue #6 Aston Martin of Tom Wood slowly traversing the circuit with obviously deranged front suspension. Safety Car for the debris field and a sad and obvious retirement for the Derbyshire racer.

Good starts from the Astons to the front of the grid saw Leroux hang on to P3 overall for all of his stint as a mistake from Hantke saw him go off track and drop well done the order as a result with damage to his car. 

Cycling through the midway pits stops, and it was the Prosport team who blinked first bringing in their #24 from P7 ahead of the others in the hope of finding track position for Sasse but quickly followed by the rest.

The #97 Holzem car would suffer brake issues as the race progressed as lap after lap the #97 would lock its front wheels eventually leading to its retirement from the race but by the end of the race, the #007 crew would deserve their P2 overall and P1 in Junior Class finish with the #69 Dontjie/Dorr car eventually settling from where they started in P7. The #24 Prosport car would finish P10, the #95 Connor Primm/Hantke car would recover to P16 and the #48 Prosport car would indeed earn their first Trophy Class podium in P21 – P3 in class!!

For Sundays second race of the weekend, it was the #95 of Connor Primm who stole the headlines by claiming overall pole position ahead of the #007 car in P3 and the #6 Racing One car of McKay in P6 as the Dorr brothers ended the round 1-2 in the overall championship standings with their respective co-drivers.

This time a clean start and opening laps of the second race saw Connor Primm maintain his lead from the chasing pack just before a sizeable accident for the sister #97 car brought out the Safety Car for the first time in race 2. Then in P21, side to side contact from a KTM Cross Bow spun Sandro Holzem hard into the armco barrier on the inside to T1 to rip off a front wheel and cause further and extensive damage to their car. Thankfully the driver was OK and walked away from the wreck.

Ten minutes was lost to that incident but on the restart and it was just two corners later that the Safety Car was required again – this time for a stranded Mercedes on track having lost power after the climb to the top of the hill.

Restart number two and this time a mistake from Connor Primm surrendered his race lead as he dropped to P3 after a mistake going into the final corner and up to P2 for #007 as a result just before the pit stop window opened.

Pit stops over and an error from the #48 PROsport crew saw them visit the penalty box for the first time for undercutting pits top minimum time whilst the #007 had dropped to P3 and the #69 and #6 cars held P7 and P8 respectively.

Trouble would again visit the AMR camp as damage to the #95 car saw Hantke drop out of contention early into his sting before the #24 Prosport car was unceremoniously punted out of the race by a spinning Porsche going into T1 – was the #24 actually the cause of this having pushed the #22 car wide at the final corner is up for debate but the result was that both cars were out.

Further trouble due to damage was to befall the #007 car of Leroux who (unseen) had also damaged his cars radiators to lose power and eventually the engine with fifteen minutes still to go. Unfortunately for the race, this period then descended into near chaos as incident after incident brought out the Safety Car again as cars kept hitting each other or went off track and into the gravel.

As a result of this, the #69 Doer car of Phil Dorr and Indy Dontjie all moved up the order and claimed a warranted P2 overall whilst the #6 car of Tom Wood made up for his race 1 mistake to come home P3 as well. The #48 Prosport was the only other Aston Martin finisher in that race!!

A great race, great venue – just a little too much contact and damage!!

Photo credits – Teams / Series